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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25589365">Dead Line</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisguidedCreations/pseuds/MisguidedCreations'>MisguidedCreations</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Series A [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:53:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,529</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25589365</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisguidedCreations/pseuds/MisguidedCreations</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Miami, 1985. A revolution in communication technology is on the horizon, just not in the way anyone was expecting. The dead are calling, and a price must be paid.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Series A [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831882</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“To Jenny.”</p><p>Clark lifted his shot glass gently in the air, sloshing the small pool of liquor over the sides as he did so. He put the drink to his lips and threw his head back, wincing slightly, the alcohol burning as it swam down his throat.</p><p>“Who’s Jenny?”</p><p>Clark turned, surprised, to find a young woman sat on the stool next to him. Her dark hair was permed into a large cloud surrounding her head, seemingly held together by a light blue bow in the middle, and she was wearing a fluorescent yellow top that hung from her shoulders. Even though she seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, she had clearly had her fair share of drinks as well.</p><p>“Ah, no one,” Clark said dismissively, not entirely sure why. “Just a girl I knew once.”</p><p>“Did she go somewhere?” the young woman asked with a grin, her head lolling from side to side.</p><p>“Sure,” Clark remarked, raising a hand to get the barman’s attention.</p><p>“They aaaalways do,” she sighed, sipping a bright red drink through a tiny straw. “Girls are THE worst.”</p><p>“Uh huh.”</p><p>The bartender poured Clark another shot, which Clark hastily knocked back, determined to at least match this woman’s level of intoxication.</p><p>“Can I tell you a secret?” the woman whispered, leaning over and resting a hand on Clark’s shoulder that quickly lost its grip and slipped off.</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“<em>I’m in love with my brother’s girlfriend and I can’t tell anyone</em>,” she hissed in his ear.</p><p>She let out a laugh, and Clark was suddenly aware that she was on the verge of tears.</p><p>“I’m…sorry,” he managed.</p><p>“Yeah! Sucks right?” she giggled, a black trail of mascara escaping down her cheek.</p><p>An electronic trilling suddenly cut through the hubbub of the bar behind them, and the woman jumped as if a gun had gone off.</p><p>“What is that?” she balked.</p><p>“Oh, right.” Clark bent down to his bag and opened it, the electronic sound becoming louder. He pulled out a large phone, about the size and weight of your average dictionary, and squinted at the buttons.</p><p>“Woah. Is that real?” the woman asked, gawping at the technology.</p><p>“Yeah, I…got it last week. Place I work for has got stocks in that PowerLine company,” Clark replied. “Will you excuse me? I gotta work out how to answer this thing.”</p><p>“Yeah, man, of course.”</p><p>Clark walked away from the bar, conscious that he had left his bag behind, but hopeful that the woman wasn’t a light-fingered drunk.</p><p>He made his way out to a corridor that led to the toilets, decorated with artwork deemed unworthy for the bar area. The phone was still ringing, which surprised Clark slightly, but then the idea that he could take a phone call in the middle of a bar was surprising in itself.</p><p>He pressed a button and held the device up to his ear, placing a finger in his other. “Hello, this is Clark Ford.”</p><p>Clark moved away from the door, trying to concentrate on a response, but all he could hear was static.</p><p>Clark took the phone away from his face and checked the display to see if it was still working. “Hello? I think our connection sucks. I’ll step outside and you can call back, alright?”</p><p>“Clark.”</p><p>This voice was muffled, coated in static and sounding like it was a million miles away. And yet for Clark it couldn’t have been clearer.</p><p>“…Jenny?”</p><p>“Clark is that really you?” the voice asked, sounding increasingly electronic and indistinct.</p><p>“Jenny? I…I don’t…” Clark placed a hand against the wall, realising how wobbly he suddenly felt. Those shots had clearly had more of an effect than he’d imagined.</p><p>“Clark, I don’t think------have long. Please------me you’re OK----”</p><p>Suddenly feeling a sense of urgency, Clark let logic give way to his heart. “Jenny? Jenny, where are you? I thought…I thought you’d…”</p><p>“----ark? ----on’t know where I a------you hear m-----?”</p><p>“No. No, Jenny, don’t go, I’m here. Jenny?”</p><p>Static.</p><p>Then the beeps of a finished call.</p><p>Clark took the phone from his ear and stared at the screen. He’d couldn’t remember if this thing could redial, but he sure as hell was going to try. He began jabbing the buttons, sweat pouring down his face now, people staring at him as they walked past.</p><p>“Damn it!” he shouted, the phone calling work rather than anything useful.</p><p>“Relax dude!” a man with shoulder-length brown hair and a questionable moustache commented as he stumbled by. “That thing’s totally rad. You can get calls from anywhere, dude!”</p><p>Clark looked up, suddenly embarrassed as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have.</p><p>Because the guy was right; you could get calls from anywhere. But surely not there. Never from there.</p><p>Clark rushed back into the bar, retrieving his bag, stuffing the huge phone back into it.</p><p>“Wrong number?” the girl asked, giggling to herself as if she’d told an amazing joke.</p><p>“Sure. Yeah,” Clark replied, not really sure of what he was saying anymore.</p><p>The girl propped herself up with one hand, watching as this strange man slung his bag over his shoulder and hurried out of the bar. She consciously pushed the rest of her half-consumed drink away from herself, deciding that she’d finally had too much. She could’ve sworn there were tiny, electrical sparks jumping over that dude’s body, as if he were fizzing with electricity. Must be seeing things.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Sun! Finally!” Matt said, looking out to the packed beach in the near distance and basking in the rays. “How is it that you have a magic box that can take us anywhere and only now we’re getting to a beach?”</p><p>“Hey!” the Doctor protested, rolling up her sleeves in the heat. “I offered to take you to Magnosa didn’t I? A planet of nothing but beaches with the clearest oceans in the universe.”</p><p>“Was that the one with the sentient cacti with an unexplainable hatred for humans?” Emma asked, leaning into the shade of the TARDIS as if she might melt in the sunlight.</p><p>“…Yes. But they only hate <em>some </em>humans. Depending on their mood.”</p><p>“I can’t believe we’re in Miami,” Matt smiled, admiring the row of palm trees lining the streets. “I always meant to go once I got out of uni, but questionable leadership choices put me off.”</p><p>“It’s 1985 so a different kind of celebrity’s currently the President if that makes things any better.”</p><p>Emma sighed, edging ever closer to the TARDIS doors. “Does it need to be quite so hot?”</p><p>“You are wearing a woollen cardigan,” Matt reminded her.</p><p>“And I will continue to do so, Matthew, until the choice of clothing on display is less…questionable,” Emma replied, as two giggling teens in denim shorts strolled past.</p><p>“Guess we better find out why the old dear dropped us here,” the Doctor commented, pulling out a pair of bright pink sunglasses from her trouser pockets. “Cool, right?”</p><p>Matt frowned. “…Sure.”</p><p>As the three began moving away from the TARDIS a loud ringing stopped them in their tracks.</p><p>Instinctively, Matt pulled his phone from his pocket, but quickly realised it wasn’t the source.</p><p>“The…TARDIS is ringing,” Emma commented, looking at the blue box sceptically.</p><p>“It is technically a phone box,” Matt shrugged.</p><p>The Doctor walked up to the TARDIS door and stroked the little black sign advertising ‘advice and assistance’.</p><p>“A phone box that isn’t supposed to receive calls.”</p><p>The Doctor pulled open the small door, revealing a black telephone sat in the hatch, ringing loudly.</p><p>“Are you going to answer it?” Matt asked impatiently.</p><p>“That never leads to anything good,” the Doctor sighed. “But needs must.”</p><p>She picked up the receiver as if vaguely unsure as to how to use it, and slowly put it to her ear. “The Doctor speaking, how can I help?”</p><p>Matt and Emma watched the Doctor’s expression closely, her blank stare giving way to a frown, morphing in to a pout. After a few seconds, she pulled the phone from her ear and slowly placed it back on its base.</p><p>“…So?” Matt prompted.</p><p>The Doctor shrugged, “Wrong number.”</p><p>“They didn’t want anything?” Emma asked, confused.</p><p>“Well technically no one spoke. I just assume they got the wrong number.”</p><p>“Oh,” Emma replied, mostly disappointed, and began walking down the street, admiring the shop windows.</p><p>“Can’t you ring them back?” Matt continued. “You said the TARDIS doesn’t get calls; so maybe it was someone in trouble. Or an emergency of some kind. You know, the normal world-ending type stuff.”</p><p>The Doctor stared distantly at the TARDIS, working through something in her head. “That call was different. The static, the background noise, it sounded…wrong.”</p><p>Before Matt could press her further, Emma called the Doctor and Matt down the boulevard. She was standing, arms crossed, in front of a store, peering through the glass intently.</p><p>“Look at this,” she commented.</p><p>“It’s a television…” Matt said, looking across the range of TV sets for sale in an electrical shop.</p><p>“I’d thank you not to patronise me, Matthew. I’m well aware of your ‘TV’s’,” Emma pouted, pronouncing each letter as if it were an alien language. “I was more interested on what’s on them.”</p><p>The Doctor, who had apparently understood Emma’s meaning already, had removed her sunglasses, and was now drifting in to the store, evidently in the hopes of hearing the accompanying sound.</p><p>A bored-looking teen behind the counter briefly looked up from his magazine as the team entered, before quickly returning to his engrossing literature.</p><p>“…We sent our reporter, Angela Gutenberg, to chat to one of these people receiving the mysterious phone calls,” a tangerine-orange man in a padded suit said, sat behind a vibrantly coloured desk on the rows of TV’s.</p><p>All three stood silently watching the blurry image, as a woman with glasses that occupied the majority of her face talked in to camera, in front of a residential street.</p><p>“I’m here in Buena Vista, talking to local man Peter Tanner, who claims to have received one of these ghostly calls from beyond the grave. Mr. Tanner, can you explain to us what exactly happened?”</p><p>The camera pulled out to a show a white-haired man, perhaps in his early seventies, looking nervously between the presenter and the camera.</p><p>“Well, uh, my phone rang a few weeks back, and I answered it, and heard the voice of my late wife, Ava. She passed some two years ago, but I know for a fact it was her.”</p><p>“He’s British?” Matt whispered, and thus received a jab in the arm from Emma who was trying to listen.</p><p>“And you don’t believe this to be a prank?” Angela Gutenberg asked, shoving the microphone a little forcefully into Peter’s face.</p><p>“Uh, no, I do not. We talked, and she knew things…it sounds crazy, I know, but—"</p><p>“Thanks, Mr. Tanner,” Angela cut in abruptly. She looked back to the camera, the lens zooming in until she occupied the whole screen. “Well there you have it. Phone calls from the dead. Unexplainable? Perhaps. Or, as Mr. Tanner said, just plain crazy! Back to you, Mitch.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Emma turned from the bank of television sets. In her limited time in the TARDIS, she had already begun to hate asking the obvious question. Seeking clarification on things that, despite only having been born some 150 years after her, Matt seemed to automatically know. Even so, this one seemed like something she had best check.</p><p>“Just to be clear, that <em>shouldn’t </em>be happening, correct?” Emma said, turning to the Doctor as the news moved to the pressing topic of a cat that looked like Jon Bon Jovi. “Telephones…don’t do that. Yes?”</p><p>“No, course not,” Matt replied, hoping that by stating it as fact would make it so. “It’s just some stupid, two-bit news report that they make up to fill time. Right, Doctor?”</p><p>Matt looked anxiously into the Doctor’s eyes, only to be met with a disappointing uncertainty.</p><p>“Oh c’mon. The dead don’t call and ask what’s up. As much as they’d like to, BT don’t stretch out into the afterlife.”</p><p>“But what if they could?” the Doctor pondered, somewhat frustratingly. “What if you found a way to reach out from wherever we all end up, back into this plane of existence? Telephones are as good a form of communication as any other. Better, in fact, because all you’d really need to do is to tap in to that one network through a single electrical signal. You pick up the phone and listen to the voice of someone on the other side of the world, but the idea of hearing someone in a different reality is absurd?”</p><p>Matt frowned. “Yes. Yes, it is.”</p><p>“You know, my sister got a call too.”</p><p>Everyone turned to the teen behind the counter, who seemed to have suddenly sprung to life.</p><p>“Yeah, man, my dad got her a PowerLine cell phone for her birthday, one of those rad new ones, and she starts getting these weird calls from our dead cousin. Crazy stuff, man.”</p><p>“That phone call the TARDIS received…” Emma said, allowing the thought to drift out incomplete.</p><p>“Oh, please don’t tell me you’re buying in to this too?” Matt sighed.</p><p>“I said that it sounded wrong somehow,” the Doctor reiterated. “The TARDIS could have easily acted as a temporary beacon for one of those calls.”</p><p>“Let’s talk to the man!” Emma suddenly said, a tad too dramatically. “The man on the TV device, I mean. A Peter Tanner, yes? We know where he resides, so it shouldn’t be too complicated.”</p><p>“And when he turns out to be a complete loon?” Matt asked.</p><p>“Then you shall have been right and we’ll all deeply regret having never listened to your superior wisdom, and we’ll have a frightful day having to pass the time in a normal fashion in this ridiculously hot city,” Emma replied.</p><p>Matt bit his tongue, trying not to huff like a petulant child. “Fine. You win.”</p><p>Using a phone booth on a nearby street that the Doctor took the time to critique as ‘nowhere near as cool as hers’, the group managed to track down first the number and then the address of Peter Tanner.</p><p>Emma, who was largely put out by the fact that the Doctor refused to use the TARDIS for such a short hop, led the others down a series of criss-crossing streets, occasionally giving an accusing stare towards the sun, as she navigated her way to Northeast 42<sup>nd</sup> Street.</p><p>“That looks like the one,” the Doctor commented, as they came to a small, pink house hidden behind an iron fence on the corner of the row.</p><p>The three hopped up the porchway steps and the Doctor rang the doorbell.</p><p>“So how are we handling this, exactly?” Matt asked, as they waited for a response. “‘Hello, we hear you’ve been getting calls from the dead. Can we help?’”</p><p>The Doctor scowled, “Let me handle it.”</p><p>A few seconds later a shadow appeared behind the window, and the white-haired man from the news report opened the door. He was far taller and broader than he had seemed on the television, and generally seemed much more spritely than his age would suggest.</p><p>“Can I help you?” he asked, searching between the three faces.</p><p>“Hello there, we hear you’ve been getting calls from the dead. We can help,” the Doctor announced, marching her way in to the house, causing Matt and Emma to awkwardly follow on behind.</p><p>“Uh, excuse me?” Peter said, slightly bemused, following the three into his own living room as if he himself wasn’t familiar with it.</p><p>“Apologies, Mr. Tanner, but we saw what you said on the TV device. We couldn’t help but be intrigued,” Emma said, giving a shy smile. “I’m Emma, and this is Matthew, and the Doctor.”</p><p>“Oh. Of course,” Peter nodded, gesturing for the three to sit on his large brown sofa, which two of them did, the Doctor choosing to meander around the room like a restless animal. “I perhaps should have expected some interest. My neighbour, Pattie, won’t stop hassling me for details.”</p><p>Matt let out an involuntary scoff and thus received yet another jab from Emma.</p><p>“Is this your wife?” the Doctor asked, picking up a black and white picture from the sideboard. “She’s beautiful.”</p><p>“Yes, that’s Ava,” Peter replied sadly. “Just last week it was two years exactly since she died.”</p><p>“Can I ask how she passed?” Matt asked as tactfully as he could.</p><p>“She was one of the passengers on Flight 707,” Peter said, but quickly noticed the blank stares in the room. “It sounds as if you’re all from the motherland so perhaps you don’t know; Flight 707 took off from Miami Airport on the 3<sup>rd</sup> May 1983 and crashed a few minutes later off the Florida coast. No survivors.”</p><p>“Goodness,” Emma gasped. “How awful. I’m so terribly sorry, Mr. Tanner.”</p><p>“And two years later you hear her voice at the end of a phone line,” the Doctor said, mostly as a statement of fact, staring at the shiny red rotary phone sat on a table.</p><p>“I know how ridiculous it sounds,” Peter insisted. “But I know for a fact that voice I’ve heard is Ava. She seems…confused and slightly anxious, but it is most definitely her.”</p><p>“New phone?” the Doctor asked, picking up the receiver sceptically and examining it.</p><p>“Well, yes, actually. One of those ‘PowerLine’ models. Recommended to me by a friend.”</p><p>“PowerLine? Didn’t that kid in the shop mention that earlier? Are they some big brand?” Matt queried.</p><p>“Mr. Powers hasn’t infiltrated the UK yet, eh?” Peter chuckled. “Give him time, I suppose.”</p><p>“And, just throwing this out there, but you wouldn’t have happened to start receiving these calls right around when you bought this phone?”</p><p>Peter went to respond and then stopped himself in thought. “Well, yes, actually, now that you mention it. You don’t suppose it’s broken, do you?”</p><p>“Quite the opposite, Peter,” the Doctor said, putting down the phone and marching out of the room.</p><p>“Hang on!” Matt said, as he and Emma quickly moved after the Doctor. “Where are you going?”</p><p>“To visit this Mr. Powers, of course. Seems like he’s got quite a nifty product on sale.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’m not keen on coincidences either,” Matt agreed.</p><p>Emma looked back into the living room. “I think I might stay here, if that’s alright. If Peter wouldn’t mind my company.”</p><p>Peter let out an involuntary smile. “Of course. I’d be honoured.”</p><p>The Doctor and Matt said their goodbyes and left out of the front door.</p><p>“Well then,” Peter said, making to get up. “Might I interest you in what passes for a cup of tea in this fine land?”</p><p>Emma smiled and sat back down on the sofa.</p><p>Then the phone began ringing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Doctor and Matt took a taxi into Downtown, paying the fare with a thousand-dollar bill from the 23<sup>rd</sup> century that the Doctor found in her pockets.</p><p>They made their way through the dense city streets, towering structures melding with packs of people causing one’s vision to become entirely overwhelmed. Matt stuck close to the Doctor’s side, genuinely wishing for alien faces in the crowd so that everything didn’t seem quite so real.</p><p>Matt spotted several businessmen in sharp suits just slightly too big for them, their hair billowing out from their scalps, purposefully talking on brick-sized telephones so that those around them could most definitely see how important they were.</p><p>“You know how I said about coincidences?” Matt said, raising his voice over the surrounding hubbub. “Funny how the dead are calling right when cell phones start being a thing.”</p><p>“My thinking too,” the Doctor agreed. “Question is, who would do this and why? What’s the hook?”</p><p>The two weaved down several more streets before finally arriving in front of a shining silver building that shot into the skyline, a hundred or more metres tall. Emblazoned on the front of the building in bright pink neon was the word ‘Powers’.</p><p>“This’ll be it then,” the Doctor sniffed.</p><p>“And how do we get in to a no doubt highly secure building, in order to meet a guy rich enough to have his own name on the side of a skyscraper?”</p><p>The Doctor shrugged, “I normally just fumble my way in to these places.”</p><p>“What, do you flirt your way in with your womanly charms?”</p><p>The Doctor gave Matt a very hard stare.</p><p>“Sorry. Didn’t mean that.”</p><p>“That does give me a pretty good idea though,” the Doctor said, grinning to herself.</p><p>Several minutes and multiple protestations later, Matt walked in to the entrance of the Powers building, shirt buttons undone down to his chest, sleeves rolled up to reveal untanned arms.</p><p>He made his way to the front desk, very awkwardly placing his forearms on the varnished wood, staring intently at the woman behind the counter whose blonde hair was held upwards in a ponytail that unnaturally stuck out from the side of her head.</p><p>The woman eventually looked up, scrutinised Matt, and then gave a forced smile. “Good afternoon sir, how may I help you today?”</p><p>“I think that perhaps <em>I </em>should be the one asking how I could help <em>you</em>,” Matt said, pointing coyly and resting his chin on his arm.</p><p>“Yuh huh,” the woman replied blankly.</p><p>“…Well, you see, I’m a businessman operating out of the UK--”</p><p>“A businessman?” the receptionist interrupted, looking Matt up and down once more.</p><p>“Yes, and, um, I was wondering if I could meet with Mr. Powers concerning--”</p><p>“Mr. Powers doesn’t take meetings by request.”</p><p>“Of course, we’re all very busy people,” Matt chuckled. The receptionist continued to stare at him with a cold expression. “But, I was just wondering if we could reach some kind of arrangement…” Matt raised his eyebrows as suggestively as he could.</p><p>“Security’s on their way,” the woman stated.</p><p>“Righty-ho,” Matt said, quickly turning on his heels and ducking back out of the building.</p><p>He walked quickly down the entrance steps before realising that the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. As he looked hurriedly around his phone rang in his pocket, and he ducked into a nearby alley in order to answer it away from potentially confused-looking eyes.</p><p>“Where have you gone?” he grumbled.</p><p>“Into the building, of course,” the Doctor replied, walking down a geometrically-carpeted hallway. “There was a private entrance on the side of the building that was surprisingly easy to break in to.”</p><p>“When you have a magic wand, yeah, breaking in is easy. Which begs the question why you made me go through all that flirting nonsense.”</p><p>“I thought it’d be a good opportunity to build your people skills. Believe me, I’ve been there, I know how hard it is.”</p><p>Matt sighed, “So what do I do now?”</p><p>“Go and get yourself something nice. I won’t be long,” the Doctor said, hanging up the phone and pressing the top floor button in the elevator.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="Stories">Emma stared intently at the bright red telephone, softly vibrating with each ring. Despite both the fact that a few weeks prior she hadn’t even known what a telephone was, and that she had only just met Peter Tanner, she still somehow knew for certain who was on the other end of the line.</p><p class="Stories">She heard a small crash from the kitchen behind her, and soon after Peter raced into the room, clutching a still-steaming teapot in his hand. He looked from the telephone to Emma and back again, as if she had somehow triggered it.</p><p class="Stories">“Should I answer it?” he asked hesitantly, gingerly placing the teapot on the sideboard.</p><p class="Stories">“Of course,” Emma replied. “Please, do.”</p><p class="Stories">Peter nodded, as if psyching himself up, and picked up the receiver. Emma watched attentively as he licked his lips, his hand shaking wildly, barely holding the phone to his ear.</p><p class="Stories">“Ava?” he said softly.</p><p class="Stories">In an instant his expression changed to one of pure relief and joy, and Emma had to stop herself jumping up from the sofa and attempting to listen in. She was acutely aware of how private a moment this must be.</p><p class="Stories">“It’s so good to hear you again,” Peter breathed, staring distantly out of the window. “I know…yes, me too…Ava, listen, do you have any idea where exactly you are?”</p><p class="Stories">Emma sat up, eager for more details.</p><p class="Stories">“Alright…of course, as long as you’re safe…yes…Ava…Ava you’re breaking up again…” Peter slowly took the phone away from his ear. “She’s gone. She doesn’t know where she is, but she said she’s feeling alright. At least we had a bit longer that time.”</p><p class="Stories">He placed the receiver back down, let out a heavy sigh, and returned to the kitchen. Emma promptly followed after him.</p><p class="Stories">“I can’t imagine what it must be like, Mr. Tanner. To hear the voice of someone you lost.”</p><p class="Stories">“It’s like losing her all over again each time,” Peter said, filling a small pitcher with milk.</p><p class="Stories">“Does the rest of her family know? Has she’s reached out to them at all?”</p><p class="Stories">Peter shook his head. “She didn’t have any other family. Her parents died a while back, and her only sister passed a few years before she did. We married late in life, so we never had any children of our own.” Peter picked up the tray with the tea set on. “Come on, indulge an old man in his memories.”</p><p class="Stories">Soon after, the two were sat on the sofa, cradling steaming cups of tea as Emma paged through a well-kept photo album.</p><p class="Stories">“She really was beautiful,” Emma commented, looking closely at a picture of Peter and Ava on their wedding day, fifteen years prior.</p><p class="Stories">“We met on my third day here, in a park by the beach. I was grouching to myself about the people everywhere and already regretting my move, and she was painting a picture of the landscape under this beautiful Jacaranda tree, and I asked why she didn’t just turn around and paint that instead. And she asked me how I thought anyone could ever possibly hope to do it justice, and how hanging a painting of it on your wall would be nothing more than a reminder of how unworthy an imitation of it it was. Which is how I feel now every time I see a photo of her.”</p><p class="Stories">Emma gave an understanding smile, abundantly aware of the power of photographs.</p><p class="Stories">“And who’s this?” Emma asked, pointing to a sepia tone photo of a young boy grinning at the camera.</p><p class="Stories">“Oh, that’s my son Martin,” Peter said, equally wistfully.</p><p class="Stories">“I thought you said yourself and Ava never had any children.”</p><p class="Stories">“We didn’t,” Peter sombrely replied. “Martin’s from my first marriage.”</p><p class="Stories">“Oh,” Emma said, trying to tamp down her ingrained prudishness.</p><p class="Stories">“He’ll be…in his early twenties by now, I guess.”</p><p class="Stories">Emma nodded, trying to seem understanding. “He’s back in England?” Peter nodded. “You’re not in contact?”</p><p class="Stories">“My marriage with his mother broke down and ended horribly. Soon after I was offered a job in Miami, and I took the next flight over. Truth be told, it’s a decision I regret every day.”</p><p class="Stories">“Well as my Great Aunt used to say, ‘People regret not what they leave, but what they do not find’. I think she stole it from an African peddler in the local market. In either case, it’s a notion I quite like,” Emma smiled, closing the photo album softly.</p><p class="Stories">“That’s funny,” Peter chuckled. “My old grandma used to say that too. You remind me a lot of her actually. She was a sweet old thing, with eyes that were as much youthful as they were ancient.”</p><p class="Stories">Peter pulled himself up, carrying the photo album back over to the shelf. “She was called Emma too, by the way. Emma Hubbard. Such a sweet old lady.”</p><p class="Stories">Emma smiled, mostly to herself, the name suddenly reminding her of dear old George Hubbard from back home, who’d previously been friends with her brother before his death. She still saw him around on occasion, and he would sometimes drop by on the anniversary of the fire to pay his respects. A very kind soul. And quite handsome, too. And—oh.</p><p class="Stories">Emma looked up at Peter, seeing him in a whole new light.</p><p class="Stories">Oh dear, she thought.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="Stories">The Doctor, having somehow convinced a security guard into actively taking her to Powers’ office, gave the ornate wooden door a quick knock before letting herself in.</p><p class="Stories">“Tell Melissa I said hi,” the Doctor called back to the still mildly dumfounded guard. “And to stay in school; she’s meant for great things.”</p><p class="Stories">A man, stood next to a wall of windows that looked out to the city skyline, turned around, brows furrowed. He was dressed in a turquoise suit that, for whatever reason, was purposefully baggy on him, sleeves rolled up and trouser waist band far too high. Despite being caught off guard he smiled a bright white smile at the Doctor, easing himself back into a throne-like, heavily padded swivel chair.</p><p class="Stories">“And who exactly might you be?” he purred.</p><p class="Stories">“The Doctor. Here to--”</p><p class="Stories">“The Doctor? It’s a pleasure,” Powers smiled, stretching out a hand but making no move to actually get up and close the distance.</p><p class="Stories">“Pleasure’s all mine,” the Doctor said through gritted teeth.</p><p class="Stories">“Can I get you a drink, Doctor?” Powers asked, easing his way across to a mini bar trolley. “Scotch? Gin? Something stronger?”</p><p class="Stories">“Got an Um Bongo? On ice, preferably.”</p><p class="Stories">Powers laughed, unphased. “Will orange juice suffice?”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor rolled her eyes. “Fine.”</p><p class="Stories">“So, what brings you to our fair city from good ol’ Blighty?” Powers asked, pouring a thick orange liquid into a brandy glass.</p><p class="Stories">“An interest. In your product line.”</p><p class="Stories">“Ah!” Powers smiled proudly. “Our cellular phones, no doubt? A technological revolution, you must agree?”</p><p class="Stories">“And the rest,” the Doctor said, taking her orange juice and sniffing it suspiciously. “How are you doing it, Powers?”</p><p class="Stories">“What would that be, exactly, Doctor?” Powers took a sip of his drink, never dropping eye contact.</p><p class="Stories">“Let’s not play games. How are you contacting the dead? Time manipulation? Replicant AI’s? Pure luck?”</p><p class="Stories">Powers gave a coy shrug.</p><p class="Stories">“I mean, you’ve done pretty well out of it. I have to imagine when word starts getting around and your brand becomes associated with these calls from beyond the grave, everyone will want one, right? Making money off people’s grief. I don’t think we’re going to be friends.”</p><p class="Stories">Powers moved back towards the windows, watching the cars move relentlessly by. “You know what’s behind every great successful product, Doctor? The ability to give people something they don’t even know they want. People die, and we live on but, really, given the chance, who among us wouldn’t dream of one last call? One last chance to say goodbye. Properly.”</p><p class="Stories">There was a brief flash of movement in Powers’ eyes back towards something on his desk, but the Doctor noticed it.</p><p class="Stories">“You’re playing with something you don’t truly know. The dead aren’t meant to exist in this world. Who knows what the consequences might be?”</p><p class="Stories">“Mr. Powers.”</p><p class="Stories">The two turned towards the desk, which appeared to be talking. Or, more accurately, an intercom device next to a bulky computer that was humming green.</p><p class="Stories">“Your daughter’s on line one. Are you free to take it?”</p><p class="Stories">Powers smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Duty calls, I guess.” He walked over to his desk and pressed a button. “I’ll take it, Diane. My meeting’s just wrapping up.”</p><p class="Stories">Powers looked up to the Doctor. “Thanks for dropping by, Doctor. And be sure to browse our product range in our in-house store below. I’ll even offer you a discount. As a friend.”</p><p class="Stories">He gave one last grin and picked up the phone. “Felicity, darling, what’s up?” he asked, picking up a framed photograph from the desk. “Yes, I know, but as I said already I’m busy that day, I won’t be able to make it.”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor, once again rueing the fact that humans were by far the most duplicitous species she had met in her long travels, drifted out of the room.</p><p class="Stories"> </p><p class="Stories">A few hours later, the Doctor and her companions regrouped in a diner near where they’d parked the TARDIS.</p><p class="Stories">“So, what did you learn?” Matt asked, picking away at a mountain of long, greasy fries.</p><p class="Stories">“That Powers is a buffoon. A corrupt buffoon. A power mad, corrupt, buffoon. Even worse, a--”</p><p class="Stories">“I think we get it,” Matt butted in. “Did you get anything useful from Peter, Em?”</p><p class="Stories">“What?” Emma asked, like a startled bird. “No. Why would I? I hardly know the man.”</p><p class="Stories">“Okay…” Matt frowned. “So, no leads and no clue how this whole ‘calls from the dead’ thing is working?”</p><p class="Stories">“Who said no leads?” the Doctor corrected. “I did learn something from my time with Powers.”</p><p class="Stories">“Go on,” Emma said.</p><p class="Stories">“He has a daughter; Felicity. He had a photo of who I presume to be her on his desk that he looked at longingly.”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor waited for a response but was met with blank stares.</p><p class="Stories">“Longingly, as in how Peter looked at the photo of Ava longingly. But here’s the thing: I checked, and Felicity Powers is alive and well, and attending Jefferson High. Acing it, sounds like.”</p><p class="Stories">“That’s…suspicious, I guess. Enough to warrant a further look at least,” Matt allowed.</p><p class="Stories">“Right. Which is why I got you two these,” the Doctor said, pulling out two large pamphlets from her pockets and passing them across to Emma and Matt.</p><p class="Stories">“A ‘Jefferson High School Curriculum’?” Emma queried, reading the title.</p><p class="Stories">“Lovely place. Nice grass. You’ll have a whale of a time.”</p><p class="Stories">Matt stopped mid-bite of his hamburger. “Excuse me?”</p><p class="Stories">“I signed you up. You two bright sparks are heading back to school.”</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Matt watched, propped up cautiously against a set of lockers, as the ringing of the school bell caused a confusion of movement among the populous of Jefferson High. For all intents and purposes, it truly was like being in some kind of American TV show; the jocks in their varsity jackets, stomping down the hallway and throwing a football between them; the cheerleaders huddled in a corner, giggling at a shared secret; and the geeks, desperately trying not to exist.</p><p>Despite the strange familiarity of it all, Matt was extremely glad when he spotted Emma rushing her way down the corridor, cradling an armful of books.</p><p>“What is a ‘dude’ and why does everyone keep referring to me as one?” she huffed, shying away from the other students as if they were a pack of wild animals.</p><p>“Where did you go? And why do you have so many books; we’re only supposed to be here a day.”</p><p>“I went to see if I could look at Felicity Powers’ records and find out what classes she’s in. Instead, I got interrogated by some dreadful woman in the office who foisted these on me. Since I’m a temporary exchange student, and all,” Emma sighed, already tiring of the lie.</p><p>“I guess we’ll just have to ask around,” Matt said, feeling pre-emptively awkward. “Hopefully doesn’t take too long.”</p><p>“Yes. I’d quite like to get out of this wretched school. And this wretched city.”</p><p>Matt frowned, “What’s up with you? You’ve been off since yesterday.”</p><p>Emma looked around uncomfortably, unsure if she should say. “Matthew. I found out something that--”</p><p>“Hey! You two!”</p><p>They turned to see a large man in gym clothes marching towards them.</p><p>“Get to class! Either that or detention, your choice.”</p><p>“Sorry, sir. We’re new here,” Matt said meekly. “Tell me after the lesson, OK?” he said to Emma, suddenly concerned as to what was bothering her.</p><p>The two navigated the labyrinthine halls with a handy printed map Emma had been given, and eventually snuck their way into the correct room as an English lesson started.</p><p>“Ah,” the teacher, Mr. Mellor, a balding man wearing both a knitted sweater and a look of exhaustion, said as they sat down at adjacent desks. “And here we have our two new students all the way from merry old England. Let’s make them welcome, folks.”</p><p>There were hushed whispers and giggling from the rest of the class, and Matt slowly sank deeper into his seat.</p><p>“Just to catch you guys up, we’re currently studying <em>David Copperfield</em>. Familiar?”</p><p>“Yes, actually,” Emma chimed in, happy to feel at ease finally. “I heard Mr. Dickens speak once at--”</p><p>“On a recording,” Matt butted in. “A…cassette tape recording.”</p><p>“Uh, huh,” Mr. Mellor said. “And what did you learn?”</p><p>Emma looked warily towards Matt. “Well…it’s really a tale about power. The power one holds, intentionally or not, over those below us in society, or even in our own relationships. One cannot hope to be someone’s equal without being open and honest in all matters.”</p><p>There was a collective silence in the room before Mr. Mellor began nodding to himself and approached the blackboard. “Not bad. Seems like they really do teach you well over there.”</p><p>Emma allowed herself a smile that was quickly removed by an errant ball of paper rebounding off of her head.</p><p>“Nerd!” someone yelled, to a cacophony of laughter from the class.</p><p>“Grow up, you idiots!” Matt shouted back, as Emma timidly stroked her hair.</p><p>“That’s enough, guys, thank you,” Mr. Mellor sighed, turning from the board. “If any of you bozos produced even a degree of the insight Miss. Lawrence just showed us, I wouldn’t be regretting my career choices on a daily basis.”</p><p>Emma and Matt sat in an uncomfortable silence for the remainder of the class, before rushing out of the room as soon as the bell rang.</p><p>“Is this really what it’s like to be a girl in school?” Emma groaned as they exited out to the corridor.</p><p>“It’s what it’s like to be intelligent at school. You survive education by acting like you don’t want it.”</p><p>It was lunchtime, so the two walked down to the cafeteria, which was gargantuan in its size. They queued up to receive questionable dollops of largely beige items on their plates, before sitting down at the nearest table.</p><p>“And you are?”</p><p>Matt looked up from his plate to see a girl sat opposite him, her eyes aflame.</p><p>“Uh, I’m Matt, and this is--”</p><p>“No,” the girl said, in an affected Californian accent even though they were on the opposite coast. “You are losers, and losers do not sit on our table.”</p><p>“I must not have seen the sign,” Matt retorted, purposefully continuing to eat his mush.</p><p>The girl stood up, enraged, causing her friend to quickly stand up with her and tug on her arm, a little too theatrically.</p><p>“Leave it, Summer, he’s totally not worth it!”</p><p>Summer pushed off her friend and brushed down her skirt. She folded her arms in Matt’s direction which elicited no response. Fuming, she picked up Matt’s polystyrene bowl of jello and tipped it onto his head.</p><p>“Oops. Looks like you spilt a little,” she smirked. “Come on, girls. I wanted to sit outside anyhow.”</p><p>Summer and her assorted gaggle strutted haughtily out of the room.</p><p>“This place sucks,” Matt groaned, brushing red blobs out of his hair, as Emma patted him down with a spare napkin.</p><p>“I said we should leave,” Emma insisted, wiping a red splash from Matt’s neck.</p><p>“Come on then, what’s the deal?” Matt sighed. “What’s wrong with Miami? Other than the obvious.”</p><p>Emma stopped her wiping, looking Matt earnestly in the eyes. “It’s about Mr. Tanner. Peter. I…learnt something.”</p><p>“What?” Matt asked, sipping on a carton of juice.</p><p>“I think I might be his grandmother,” Emma replied quietly, causing Matt to nearly choke on his drink.</p><p>“You…huh?”</p><p>Emma explained to Matt what Peter had said, and about her familiarity with George Hubbard.</p><p>“That doesn’t prove it, though,” Matt tried. “There could be hundreds of Emma Hubbard’s. Or George could have married some other Emma. You’re travelling with us. Right?”</p><p>“You didn’t see what I saw, Matthew. When I really looked, I saw that his nose is the exact same shape as mine. And the way he scrunched up his face when he was thinking. And his eyes, they’re my eyes, Matthew. I can just…feel it, I can’t quite explain.”</p><p>Matt watched Emma, recognising her sincerity, and felt oddly sorry for her.</p><p>“It must be so weird,” he said. “Meeting your future grandson. At least he’s fairly happy, right?”</p><p>“Perhaps. He has a dead wife and a child he doesn’t know. Matthew, it’s so peculiar. Why would the TARDIS choose to bring us here? Did the Doctor know? Am I supposed to…help him, somehow?”</p><p>Matt was unsure of how to respond, but was fortunately prevented from doing so by a tall, heavily-built teen storming into the cafeteria.</p><p>“Hey, everyone! Fight out on the quad!”</p><p>There was a sudden mass exodus of excitable teens from the room, and Matt and Emma promptly joined the crowd.</p><p>They exited out onto a large playing field that had already amassed a sizeable crowd of onlookers. Matt and Emma eased their way through, but the throng was far too dense at the front to move past.</p><p>“I can’t even see who it is,” a disgruntled boy moaned, standing on his tiptoes.</p><p>“It’s that Summer chick, dude,” his taller friend replied. “She’s crazy hot.”</p><p>“No duh. Who’s she fighting?”</p><p>“That creepy girl, Felicity. They’re going <em>at</em> each other, bro!”</p><p>Upon the mention of the name, Emma and Matt turned to one another, and Emma quickly ducked as low as she could, crouch-walking under the armpits of several sweaty teens.</p><p>She emerged at the front of the crowd, and watched in slight shock as Summer and a smaller, mousy-haired girl scrapped on the grass. Even though she was evidently outmatched in terms of size, it appeared the girl, Felicity, was more than holding her own.</p><p>Emma felt herself being forcibly pushed to one side as the gym-clothed teacher from earlier barged his way through the mass.</p><p>“Alright, alright, break it up now ladies!” he yelled, pulling Felicity off Summer who was pinned to the ground. “Move along folks, show’s over!” he announced to the crowd.</p><p>The audience scattered in a collective grumble, but Matt and Emma remained, watching from a distance as the gym coach helped Summer up, and then lectured both of the girls about fighting on school premises.</p><p>“Miss. Davenport, I believe you have an Athletics meet to get to. And Miss. Powers…how about you come see me about signing up for the wrestling team sometime?”</p><p>The gym teacher gave Felicity a sympathetic, if not hard, pat on the back, and walked off, leaving the two girls to stare each other down. Summer scoffed, and went to retrieve her bag from a nearby tree, but found it stuck underneath Felicity’s foot.</p><p>“If you <em>ever</em> talk about my mom again, you’re dead,” Felicity hissed, causing Summer to not even bother with a rebuke, and instead scamper away.</p><p>Emma turned to Matt with a slight look of alarm on her face, to which Matt shrugged, looking largely impressed. “I like her.”</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Doctor was sat at a table in a parlour that purported to serve the best milkshakes this side of Tennessee (whatever that meant). She pulled out a pair of binoculars from her back pocket and squinted through the window. She watched closely, the rush of people moving by looking not unlike a flow of water, trying to see who went in and out of the Powers building.</p><p>“Can I help you today?” a young woman with a permanent smile asked. The Doctor considered this to be the sweetest version of, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she’d ever heard.</p><p>“Yeah, actually, what can you tell me about that building over there?” the Doctor asked, pointing out the window.</p><p>“The Powers place?” the waitress replied, looking to where the Doctor was indicating. “It’s a lovely building, not long taken over by PowerLine--”</p><p>“No. What can you <em>really</em> tell me. You see everything from here, I’m sure. Give me some juicy goss.”</p><p>The waitress assessed the Doctor, before abruptly pulling up a chair and sitting next to her.</p><p>“That man, Lance Powers, he went in there first day they opened, and I don’t think I ever saw him since. Not once. Guy must work 24/7 up in that tower of his.”</p><p>“Interesting,” the Doctor said, moving her binoculars up towards the top floor. “Anything else?”</p><p>“Well…y’all gonna think I’m crazy…” the waitress drifted off coyly.</p><p>“Janice,” the Doctor said, looking down at the waitress’s nametag. “Crazy is my middle name. I think. It’s either that or Melvin, I forget.”</p><p>Janice leaned across the table conspiratorially. “You see that side entrance they got that goes underground?” The Doctor nodded. “One night, I see them drive up this big ol’ truck, and these two guys drag something out of the back. Now I think at first this must be some kind of ‘corporate espionage’, ya know, like how you hear on the news? But then I look a little closer, and this guy they drag out has this sheet over him. Only I could still see his legs, and it was like…they was made of electric or somethin’.”</p><p>“Made of electric? That is crazy. Janice, I’m going to need five of your finest milkshakes. I might be here a while.” The Doctor took out a crumpled bill and passed it across to Janice who gave a small gasp. “Keep the change. Consider it my tip for your tip.”</p><p>Janice hurried off to the kitchen, already mentally planning a holiday in her head.</p><p> </p><p>The Doctor remained at her table for the rest of the day, Janice helpfully thwarting off other waitresses questioning her presence. It was late afternoon, and the Doctor was just scribbling down a feasible equation for FTL travel on the back of a napkin when a large truck pulled up next to the Powers building, suspicious in its inconspicuousness.</p><p>The Doctor rushed out of the parlour, waving to Janice, before crossing across the busy street and sneaking up beside the truck. The vehicle was parked on a downward slope, with its rear partway into the building. With her head against the truck, the Doctor could hear scuffling and a dull groaning from within.</p><p>“Just get it inside,” a muffled voice said. “You got the keys?”</p><p>“Right here,” a second voice replied. “But are you sure that cage is enough to hold it?”</p><p>“It’s made of wood; it can’t pass through. Plus, Boss says these things fizzle into nothin’ two hours, tops. You just gotta make sure they don’t grab you, ya hear?”</p><p>“Right. Sure.”</p><p>The Doctor walked down the side of the truck, following the sounds of banging, until she reached the building. Although the truck took up most of the entranceway, there was enough of a gap for the Doctor to sidle through, although she opted to stay outside for now until she had a better handle on the situation.</p><p>She peered through the gap, watching as two men dragged something behind them that was hidden underneath plastic sheeting. They walked into what had clearly once been an underground carpark, but was now abandoned, save for several tall, wooden cages lining the walls.</p><p>Whatever was under the sheet was letting out an awful sound, a groan of static that reverberated around the room, not unlike a recording of a bat played back on an old cassette. The men were pulling the thing along by plastic hooks looped around its middle, both regularly checking to see how far away they were from the nearest cage.</p><p>“Hold it still!” one of the men yelled, hurriedly pulling a set of keys from his pocket, shoving one in to the lock, and throwing it open.</p><p>Between them they had to pull the thing into the cage, the confined space clearly unnerving both, before hastily dropping their hooks, running back out, and locking the door.</p><p>The commotion had caused the sheet to fall away from the creature, and the Doctor looked on in horror at what was underneath. It was quite obviously humanoid in shape, if not awkwardly hunched over, as if it had been hit in the stomach. It clearly had a physical form of some kind, but it appeared to lack skin or any kind of outer layer entirely. Instead, it seemed to be composed of pure electricity, a bright blue network of sparks and bolts laying out a map of the human nervous system. Its head was entirely featureless, save for a single hole from which its strange screeching sounds emanated.</p><p>“Phew. Job done then, right?” the marginally more nervous of the two men asked the other.</p><p>“Sure. Now you just gotta guard it ‘til it…fizzes out,” the other replied, making for the truck.</p><p>“What? No one said that was part of the deal!” the first man protested.</p><p>“Look, the thing’s fine,” his friend assured him, grabbing the planks of the cage and looking through. “It’s like looking after a dog. You don’t hurt it, and it won’t--”</p><p>In a split second, the electrical creature had jumped towards the slats and had its approximation of fingers around the man’s throat.</p><p>“Help…me…” the man croaked, sparks running up and down his body, his veins popping out from his skin.</p><p>“Oh God! Oh geez!” his friend replied, backing away.</p><p>The Doctor watched in horror as electricity seemed to pulse and jump from the creature to the man, his body flailing wildly, his feet now off the ground. Barely a few seconds later, the man exploded entirely, into a rain of golden yellow sparks that fell slowly to floor.</p><p>The other man had collapsed onto the ground, crawling backwards, and now picked himself up, sprinting full pelt towards the Doctor, who hastily ducked around the other side of the truck.</p><p>She heard the cab door open, the engines fire, and quickly moved back as the truck careered off, back onto the open road.</p><p>The Doctor stood against the building, panting, before noticing that the shutters to the entrance were still open. Fearing that the creature might escape, although equally out of pure curiosity, she ducked inside, pulling the shutters down behind her.</p><p>The creature was still in the cage, hunched over in a corner, and the Doctor approached it cautiously.</p><p>“What are you?” she muttered, taking slow steps towards it.</p><p>Once she had reached the cage she pulled out her sonic screwdriver and scanned the huddled being.</p><p>“Definitely human. But your cells have turned into pure electricity. You’re nothing but one big circuit.”</p><p>The creature stirred slightly, lolloping to one side.</p><p>“I can guess why you were brought here of all places. I told Powers there would be consequences. Death is calling. And its spreading like a virus.”</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="Stories">“Felicity?”</p><p class="Stories">Felicity Powers was now sat slumped against a tree, flicking through a crumpled magazine she’d found in her rucksack, internally assessing which parts of her body would soon explode into bruises. She looked up to see two figures she didn’t recognise stood over her, and girl and a boy, looking shyly awkward in a way that only the British can.</p><p class="Stories">“Yeah?”</p><p class="Stories">“Hi! Sorry, I’m Matt, this is Emma. We just started here today.”</p><p class="Stories">“How nice,” Felicity commented, returning to her magazine.</p><p class="Stories">Matt pressed on. “We just heard your name and wondered if you were Powers as in Lance Powers, as in PowerLine telephones?”</p><p class="Stories">“That’s the one,” Felicity mumbled.</p><p class="Stories">“Oh. Good,” Matt said, having reached a conversational cul-de-sac.</p><p class="Stories">Emma knelt down, trying to meet Felicity’s eyes. “Felicity, Matthew and I aren’t from here. By which I mean we aren’t from this time. I come from the 19<sup>th</sup> century and Matthew the 21<sup>st</sup>. We came here in a spaceship with our friend who is a time-travelling alien. And all of that might sound absurd, but if you’ve experienced something equally unexplainable, as I have a feeling you might have, then perhaps you would do me the honour of hearing us out, because we may be able to help you.”</p><p class="Stories">Felicity begrudgingly looked over the top of her magazine. “Time travel?”</p><p class="Stories">Emma and Matt nodded enthusiastically.</p><p class="Stories">Felicity sucked her lips before standing and throwing her bag over her shoulder. “Meet me behind the library after school. We’ll chat properly then.”</p><p class="Stories"> </p><p class="Stories">Three hours later, Matt and Emma stood waiting outside the school, having survived both Math without the ‘s’ and a surprisingly easy Spanish class, largely aided by the TARDIS’s translation circuits.</p><p class="Stories">Felicity appeared shortly afterwards, gingerly walking towards the two. If they hadn’t witnessed the earlier scuffle, they would have considered Felicity to be fairly shy and retiring, as she took a pair of rather large glasses from her back pocket and pushed them up her nose.</p><p class="Stories">“You…are from the future,” she said abruptly, serving as a greeting, “and you are from the past? That’s totally insane.”</p><p class="Stories">“The fact that you believe us so easily tells me that whatever you’ve been through is just as insane,” Matt said, pushing for more information.</p><p class="Stories">Felicity pulled a loose strand of hair out from her face, looking intently at a single blade of grass, trying to avoid everyone’s eyelines entirely.</p><p class="Stories">“I don’t think even you guys would believe this.”</p><p class="Stories">“Try us,” Emma said kindly.</p><p class="Stories">“I think I died,” Felicity announced, relief at finally being able to say the words aloud clear in her expression.</p><p class="Stories">“That’s definitely not the craziest thing we’ve ever heard,” Matt said. “What makes you think you did?”</p><p class="Stories">Felicity boggled slightly. “Wow, you guys really do believe anything. Um, basically, I was on Flight 707, the one that crashed. Me and my mom were going to visit Gramps in Sacramento. I remember being on the plane, and then there was this noise of, like, grinding metal, and then the lights went out and people started screaming. And the last thing I remember was my mom putting an oxygen mask on me and then…black.</p><p class="Stories">“And then the next thing I know, I open my eyes and…well it must’ve been heaven. Everything was white and silent, and I just felt weirdly calm, ya know? But then I start seeing things from my life, images and places, but they’re real. They say your life flashes before your eyes, right, but I’m thinking what if after you die you just live it all over again?”</p><p class="Stories">Matt frowned, a realisation slowly coalescing, but chose not to interrupt.</p><p class="Stories">“I don’t know how long I was there for, but then one day this woman appears. Says I’m safe, and tells me to come with her in her Tar… I don’t remember the word she used, exactly, but I’d never heard of it before.”</p><p class="Stories">Emma turned to Matt with a look of growing concern on her face.</p><p class="Stories">“Can you remember what this woman looked like?” Emma asked Felicity urgently.</p><p class="Stories">“Uh, like, young. Not our age, but not far out. Short hair?” she shrugged. “It’s like thinking about a dream you had a year ago.”</p><p class="Stories">Emma forced herself to concentrate despite the whirr of thoughts going through her head.</p><p class="Stories">“Anyway, then I open my eyes and somehow I’m back in bed, in my place. Dad calls me for breakfast and…things just start up again.”</p><p class="Stories">“Did he say anything? Your dad. Because presumably your mum…”</p><p class="Stories">Felicity sighed. “He doesn’t talk about any of it. Mom’s funeral was just like some inconvenience we had to attend. He took me to Chuck E. Cheese straight after and acted like nothing had happened. I don’t see him anymore; he’s been stuck in that office of his ever since.”</p><p class="Stories">“Thank you for telling us all of this Felicity,” Emma said, cupping her hands around the young girl’s.</p><p class="Stories">“I’m just glad someone’ll listen to me finally,” she smiled. “I should go, anyways. There’s usually a car waiting to pick me up somewhere round here, driven by some nameless dude.”</p><p class="Stories">Felicity gave one last smile and then walked back round to the front of the building.</p><p class="Stories">“Matthew, that was the Doctor!” Emma hissed once Felicity was out of sight. “She was talking about the Doctor.”</p><p class="Stories">“I know. From what Felicity described she wasn’t in heaven, though; it sounded pretty much the same as the time bubble Mrs. McCulloch got trapped in. A blank void in which your memories can reappear.”</p><p class="Stories">“I remember you telling me about it,” Emma nodded. “So, perhaps none of the people on Flight 707 are deceased? Perhaps they all became trapped in a time bubble, somehow?”</p><p class="Stories">“Then why didn’t the Doctor tell us? If she knows what’s going on, why have us go through all of this stuff?”</p><p class="Stories">Emma looked away in thought. “Well…what if it hasn’t happened to her yet? Time is always a bit of a nonsense where she’s concerned. Perhaps she goes on to do this in her future.”</p><p class="Stories">“I do love a good causal loop,” Matt nodded.</p><p class="Stories">“But don’t you understand, Matthew? If this is in her future we must not tell her. She’s always warning us about the perils of messing with time. She wouldn’t want to know what is in her future, I’m sure of it.”</p><p class="Stories">“I guess but…are you maybe projecting a bit too?”</p><p class="Stories">Emma went to reply but stopped herself, instead exhaling deeply and looking away. At that moment Matt felt a buzzing in his pocket, and surreptitiously pulled out his phone.</p><p class="Stories">“It’s the Doctor,” he said, looking at Emma as if they’d just been gossiping about her.</p><p class="Stories">He pressed the answer icon. “Found anything?”</p><p class="Stories">“Trouble, Matt, big trouble,” the Doctor said, sounding as if she was running.</p><p class="Stories">“What? What’s up?” he asked, putting the phone on speaker.</p><p class="Stories">“The calls are affecting people. Turning them into electrical phantasms, zombies, whatever you want to call them.”</p><p class="Stories">“What’s a ‘zombie’, precisely?” Emma asked.</p><p class="Stories">“A not good thing,” Matt groaned. “No, listen, Doctor, we’ve found out something too; the people calling aren’t dead. We think they were all on that plane, Flight 707, and then somehow got stuck in a time bubble. Felicity…remembers being in one,” Matt said, picking his words carefully.</p><p class="Stories">“Of course. But then that would explain the zombies; the universe can’t deal with something that’s both alive and dead making its way back in. So, it turns people into something that’s dead and alive to reset the balance.”</p><p class="Stories">“Equal and opposite,” Emma mused.</p><p class="Stories">“Right.”</p><p class="Stories">“But you got a call and nothing happened to you,” Matt pointed out.</p><p class="Stories">“I think it’s a case of long-term exposure. One call, fine. But each one dents the fabric of the universe just enough until a tiny crack turns into a full-blown hole.”</p><p class="Stories">“Long-term exposure?” Emma repeated. “But what about Peter?”</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I marvel at the sluggishness of modern transport,” Emma huffed, sat next to Matt on a bus they’d caught outside the school. “Why did you ever renounce horses for these… malodourous boxes?”</p><p>“Emma, he’ll be fine,” Matt assured her. “We’ll reach him in time. I mean, you’re still here so he must be good, right? I think that’s how time works; I’m mostly basing this off <em>Back to the Future</em>.”</p><p>“You’re positive you don’t have his number?”</p><p>“We didn’t write it down. If this were 30 years later I could Google him, but the internet’s yet to destroy society.”</p><p>The bus eventually dropped them a few blocks from Peter’s house, and Emma immediately broke out into a full-bodied sprint, dodging traffic and pedestrians alike.</p><p>When she finally made it to Peter’s house she began banging on the door, shouting his name as Matt caught up to her.</p><p>“You run crazy fast,” he panted, bent double.</p><p>“He’s not answering,” Emma panicked, peering through the front window.</p><p>“The door’s not locked,” Matt said, trying the handle. “Come on.”</p><p>The two entered, scanning the rooms and calling for Peter.</p><p>“Whatever’s going on?”</p><p>Emma felt her body physically relax as Peter came in to the living room, watering can in hand.</p><p>“I was just out the back, doing some gardening and chatting to Pattie next door. Emma, what’s wrong?”</p><p>“Oh, Peter. I was just worried…it’s nothing serious, it’s just--”</p><p>The phone began ringing.</p><p>Everybody instinctively turned to it, Emma and Matt looking as if a bomb was about to explode.</p><p>“It must be her again!” Peter chuckled to himself, walking towards the table.</p><p>“No!” Emma shouted, jumping in front of him. “You mustn’t! Peter, those calls are dangerous. They’re changing people, hurting them.”</p><p>Peter looked at Emma in confusion. “What? They can’t be; look at me, nothing wrong with me.”</p><p>“Yes, but there might be, eventually. Please, listen to me.”</p><p>Emma held Peter’s gaze, trying to dig down into some familial connection they must latently have. Knowing that he still looked mildly torn, however, Emma grabbed the phone, pulling it out from the wall and throwing it aggressively across the room.</p><p>“There,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. “Now it won’t harm anyone.”</p><p>“That still cost me the better part of a hundred bucks,” Peter tutted.</p><p>“Well that’s one person safe, at least,” Matt allowed. “How do we go about saving all the others?”</p><p>Peter frowned. “You’re serious, then, about the phones being a danger?” Emma and Matt nodded. “But, then…I was just talking to Pattie; she said I’d finally convinced her to get one.”</p><p>There was a moment’s pause where everyone looked between themselves, before they all bundled out to Peter’s garden.</p><p>“Pattie? Pattie, are you still there?” Peter shouted, leaning over the fence.</p><p>Patricia Gregory, meanwhile, was in the kitchen, doing some dishes and listening to Aretha Franklin on her record player, gently humming to herself. She hated to admit it, but ever since she had finally bought one of those damned phones everyone kept banging on about she felt so much happier in herself. As if an unseen weight had been lifted from her. Just hearing the sound of Johnny’s voice has been more of a salve than she could have predicted.</p><p>As if on cue, the phone began chiming in the hallway.</p><p>“Hang on, hang on,” she sighed, pulling off her rubber gloves and drying her hands on a towel.</p><p>The phone continued to trill, and Pattie cursed her worn-out hips as she hurried to answer. She finally reached the handset, but just as she placed a hand on the receiver the ringing stopped.</p><p>Pattie tutted under her breath, making a mental note to move the damn thing closer to the sitting room as she shuffled back to the kitchen.</p><p>Suddenly, a voice cut through the music. Pattie turned and smiled.</p><p>“Hey, mom, um, I guess I missed you. Sorry to call, um, I just wanted to hear your voice again. Silly, I know,” Johnny said nervously.</p><p>Thank goodness for answering machines.</p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Matt and Emma stood hammering on the patio door of Pattie’s house, cupping their hands around their eyes to look through the glass in hopes of seeing some sign of movement within. Peter, meanwhile, shuffled through a cluster of keys, shakily trying to remember which was the right one. “She always locks her doors; says she scared of teens stealing her money. Even though I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a Winchester under her chair.”</p><p>He shoved a key into the lock, turned it, took it back out and tried another. Eventually he found the correct one, pulling open the door, the three racing in to Pattie’s laundry room, calling her name even louder.</p><p>“What happens if we don’t get to her in time?” Peter asked Emma.</p><p>“Best not to concentrate on that,” Emma evaded. “Let’s just find her.”</p><p>Everyone hurried through the house, Matt observing the now cooling bowl of soapy water and abandoned rubber gloves in the sink.</p><p>The three emerged into the living room, a figure visible in the hallway. “Pattie!” Peter called out, relieved, upon seeing the back of his neighbour bent over the telephone stand. “We were just…Pattie?”</p><p>Emma quickly grabbed Peter’s arm, pulling him back, as they noticed small blue sparks dancing over the elderly woman’s body.</p><p>“What’s wrong with her?” Peter gasped. As if in response Pattie, or at least what had once been her, turned, her face melting into an eternal, electric scream.</p><p>The three stumbled backwards as Pattie’s clothes caught alight and burned on her body, her skin seemingly disappearing until all that was left was a human frame of electricity.</p><p>“Bloody hell,” Matt whimpered.</p><p>“Everyone, out!” Emma yelled, as the creature began staggering slowly towards the group, tendrils of electric shooting from its appendages.</p><p>They raced through the house and back outside, Peter fiddling with his keys in a blind panic, trying to get the patio door locked behind them.</p><p>“Damn it!” he moaned, briefly dropping the keys as the creature glided in to the laundry room.</p><p>Eventually the door was locked, Peter pulling on it to double check, and the group walked slowly backwards, watching the caged creature inside.</p><p>“What now?” Emma asked aloud to no one in particular.</p><p>The creature shuffled up to the patio door and, as if there was no pane of glass there, phased straight through it.</p><p>“Now she does that, apparently,” Matt gaped. “She must have a crazy high voltage to be able to pass through glass.”</p><p>“Yes, well, I’m sure you can carry out the necessary experiments on her later. For now, let’s concentrate on getting away from her,” Emma said, desperately looking around for something of use.</p><p>Together, they raced to the far edge of the yard, Emma and Matt hurdling back over the fence into Peter’s garden, giving Peter a hand as he did so too. In response, the creature toppled head first over the divide, shifting to recollect itself into a ‘standing’ position.</p><p>“We need to do <em>something</em>,” Emma cried. “We can’t just keep running from it.”</p><p>“Here.”</p><p>The group turned to see the Doctor stood in the back doorway of Peter’s house, holding something in her hands.</p><p>“Doctor!” Emma and Matt shouted in harmony.</p><p>“Peter, mate, you forgot something,” she said, holding up his watering can.</p><p>“I, uh, huh?” Peter managed, as he and the two others stood instinctively behind the Doctor’s protective stance.</p><p>“I’m gonna do something they always tell you not to, which, let’s be honest, won’t be for the first time.” The Doctor gripped the can in both her hands and swung her arms back. “Never mix water and electricity.”</p><p>She threw her arms forward, sending a spray of liquid out onto the creature.</p><p>“Get back!” the Doctor ordered, as almost immediately wayward shots of electric began shooting out in all directions.</p><p>It was as if the Doctor had thrown a bucket of acid on the creature, whose form began dissolving and dissipating, electric discharging wildly, and smoke billowing outwards.</p><p>A few terrifying moments later, all that was left was a scorched, slightly fizzing patch of earth in the middle of Peter’s lawn.</p><p>“The water was enough of a conductor to destabilise the creature’s form,” the Doctor explained, throwing the watering can down to the floor. “The last vestiges of a life barely clinging on to existence; it’s like blowing on a house of cards.”</p><p>“Oh, Doctor, thank you!” Emma said, throwing her arms around the Doctor’s neck.</p><p>“Part of the remit,” she shrugged. “You two alright?”</p><p>Matt and Peter gave tentative nods, still stunned.</p><p>“I can’t quite believe this is happening to people. And those still grieving, too; how cruel,” Emma sighed.</p><p>“This has <em>always</em> been about manipulating people in grief,” the Doctor said indignantly.</p><p>“Who knows how many others are being affected by this,” said Matt, shaking his head.</p><p>“At least we know the ‘dead’ are only those on that aeroplane flight,” Emma replied. “That narrows down the list of potential phone call recipients.”</p><p>Peter looked up. “Flight 707? Of course; Pattie’s son was on that plane, too.”</p><p>The Doctor shook her head, “I don’t think it’s that simple. Remember, I received a call as well. I’m guessing anyone tapped in to the network could, potentially, receive one, if the caller in the time bubble doesn’t get the number right.”</p><p>There was a collective silence as everyone considered the implications.</p><p>“How do we stop this, then?” Matt asked. “Take down the network?”</p><p>“They’d never let you close enough to disrupt the lines,” Peter pointed out.</p><p>“Then we have to find everyone who purchased a PowerLine telephone and destroy it, yes?” Emma suggested, aware of how improbable an idea that was even before it had been vocalised.</p><p>“I’ve got another plan,” the Doctor announced, and everyone turned to her expectantly. “We’re gonna do the one thing unwanted callers never expect you to do; we’re gonna call them back.”</p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lance Powers exited his executive en suite bathroom, wiping his slightly damp hands on the back of his trousers, to find the Doctor lounging casually in his office chair.</p><p>“Super comfy chair,” she said, squirming slightly in the seat. “Ergonomic?”</p><p>“Doctor!” Powers replied, forcing a smile. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”</p><p>The Doctor sprang up from the seat. “Ah, you know, just passing by. Boy, you really do work long hours, huh?” she commented, looking out to the twinkling city below, glowing in the darkness.</p><p>Powers shrugged, “Just one of the drawbacks of running a company.”</p><p>“Sure. Wouldn’t be because you can’t actually leave the building, right?”</p><p>Powers walked up to window next to the Doctor. “What a fanciful idea,” he said.</p><p>“See, your phones have extra tech in them. Special tech, advanced tech, tech you really shouldn’t have been able to get your hands on. Tech that allows calls to come in from a whole other universe.”</p><p>“And how would I ever have achieved that, Doctor?” Powers asked, genuinely curious to test her knowledge.</p><p>“<em>You</em> didn’t. But someone far cleverer than you did. Someone who offered you a deal.”</p><p>Powers twitched at the mention of the word. “A deal?”</p><p>The Doctor nodded, and began pacing round the room, hands in pockets. “Of course. You sell these ‘upgraded’ phones with their rather unique selling point, and in return…you get Felicity back.”</p><p>Powers’ expression finally broke, rage crossing over his face.</p><p>“My daughter is none of your concern.”</p><p>“When she’s dead she is. Or, more accurately, when she’s been brought back from another universe.”</p><p>The Doctor sighed, lowering her tone slightly. “Lance, you thought you’d lost your daughter and your wife, and then someone comes along offering the chance to bring one of them back? Even I can see how much of a temptation that would be.</p><p>“But you must have known the consequences; you are one yourself. I’m guessing this office is some kind of reverse Faraday cage? Keeping you here, barely, in exchange for Felicity’s presence in this universe.”</p><p>Powers, continuing to look out to the darkness below so as not to show the Doctor his face, choked slightly. “My life for hers; who wouldn’t?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t,” Peter said, entering the room behind the Doctor.</p><p>“Lance, this is Peter, one of your many customers. He’s been receiving calls from his dead wife Ava. Calls that could have turned him into one of those electric zombies you keep locked up under the building.”</p><p>Powers turned, then, looking at Peter, both men on the edge of total collapse.</p><p>“Mr. Powers, you gave me the opportunity to hear my wife’s voice one more time. For which I am thankful. But you also manipulated me. You used my pain to sell more of your products. I loved my wife more than I thought it possible to love anything. But she died, Mr. Powers. And even I know nothing can ever truly reverse that.”</p><p>A tear began rolling down Lance’s cheek, and the Doctor observed that it left a trail of blue fizzing sparks behind it.</p><p>“I apologise, sir,” Lance said quietly, moving over to a painting hung on one of the walls.</p><p>“Lance…” the Doctor said by way of warning.</p><p>“Tell Felicity…that she was more than worth it,” Lance murmured, swinging the painting on an unseen hinge to reveal a hidden control panel behind it.</p><p>Lance was visibly sparking now, shuddering slightly, as he slowly pushed a series of buttons and pulled a lever. The lights immediately went out in the room, leaving only the distant glow from the city to illuminate the office.</p><p>The Doctor moved across to the control panel and pulled the lever back up, switching the lights back on, and displaying a scorched patch of carpet where Lance Powers had once stood.</p><p>“He killed the power,” the Doctor said distantly, inspecting the control panel.</p><p>“I guess he really couldn’t live like that anymore,” Peter replied.</p><p>The Doctor took a moment to mourn before snapping back into action.</p><p>“At least we know now that the building’s electric routes through this terminal, which is perfect,” she said, pulling out her sonic. “I should be able to use it to boost power to the phone lines.”</p><p>The sonic whirred, causing the control panel to spark slightly, before the Doctor rushed off and sat back down at Powers’ desk. She picked up the phone and dialled a familiar number.</p><p>“Yo,” Matt said, taking the phone from the outside of the TARDIS back in with him to the control room.</p><p>“Matt, are you ready?”</p><p>“Yup. Connecting to the network now,” he said, holding the phone in one hand and pushing buttons on the TARDIS console with the other.</p><p>“You almost look like you know what you’re doing,” Emma smiled next to him.</p><p>“Yea. Kinda,” Matt frowned, staring closely at the Post-it note the Doctor had left him.</p><p>The Doctor looked down at the LED display on the phone which was now showing a range of strange symbols and numbers.</p><p>“Perfect! We’re in! Call you back later,” she said, hanging up on Matt and beginning to press numbers on the touchpad.</p><p>“Now, we make an interdimensional call,” the Doctor commented, looking up to Peter who had eagerly leaned in. “Hope we can cover the charges.”</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="Stories">“Hello?”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor held the phone to her ear, awaiting a response. The phone had dialled out, continually, for several minutes, until finally the dial tone gave way to static that at the very least suggested the call had connected to some place.</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor glanced back to Peter, who was watching her expectantly, and scratched her head.</p><p class="Stories">“Anyone there?”</p><p class="Stories">“I’m here,” a voice replied. But not just one voice; several voices, male and female, high and low, intermixed together.</p><p class="Stories">“Oh, great, hi there, I’m the Doctor.”</p><p class="Stories">“You’re the…Doctor?” the voices asked.</p><p class="Stories">“Yeah. I don’t think any of you know me. At least I hope you don’t. But I’m calling on behalf of your loved ones. The ones left behind.”</p><p class="Stories">Peter caught the Doctor’s eye, and, realising who she may be talking to, he turned away.</p><p class="Stories">“We miss them,” the chorus said, several voices straining with grief.</p><p class="Stories">“I know, but I need you to stop calling them. You’re…not in this universe anymore. You don’t belong here.” The Doctor cursed herself for the poor turn of phrase as it left her lips.</p><p class="Stories">“Then where do we belong?” the voices pleaded.</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor paused, thrown.</p><p class="Stories">“We just want to say hello.”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor closed her eyes, racked with guilt. When she opened them, a light on the phone was flashing, indicating she had a call on the other line.</p><p class="Stories">“Hello?”</p><p class="Stories">“Doctor, it’s us,” Emma replied, sounding urgent. “They’re here, Doctor. A mob of those creatures are outside of the TARDIS, trying to get in. They’re being drawn to the signal.”</p><p class="Stories">“Just…hold out for two more minutes, OK? You’ll both be safe, I promise,” the Doctor said, not believing her own words but switching back to the other line.</p><p class="Stories">“Sorry, busy day,” she said nervously, to a response of static.</p><p class="Stories">“Doctor.”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor looked up to see that Peter had moved closer with a grave expression on his face. “Perhaps I should have a try?”</p><p class="Stories">“What? No! It’s too dangerous; I’ve been in and out of the universe enough times to survive this call, but a few more seconds of exposure and you could get zombified,” the Doctor protested, placing her hands over the mouthpiece.</p><p class="Stories">“Please, Doctor. I know my wife. Let her hear it from someone she trusts.”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor grunted, screwed up her face, and begrudgingly handed the phone across to Peter.</p><p class="Stories">“Hello? Ava, are you there?”</p><p class="Stories">“I’m here,” a singular voice replied.</p><p class="Stories">Peter couldn’t help but smile. “Darling. What the Doctor said is true; you and the others need to stop calling everyone in this world.”</p><p class="Stories">“But why?” Ava asked softly.</p><p class="Stories">“Because it hurts too much.”</p><p class="Stories">There was muffled sobbing on both ends of the line.</p><p class="Stories">“We miss you,” the voices cried out together.</p><p class="Stories">“And we all miss you too,” Peter said, eyes streaming. “But this has to be goodbye. We all need to let go, together.”</p><p class="Stories">There was a silence that Peter wished would go on forever.</p><p class="Stories">“Goodbye, Peter.”</p><p class="Stories">“Goodbye, Ava.”</p><p class="Stories">The line went dead.</p><p class="Stories">Peter wiped his face with his sleeve and handed the phone back to the Doctor. “It’s done,” he managed.</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor nodded, “Thank you. Now to sort out this side of the universe.”</p><p class="Stories">She pressed a button on the phone and switched back the lines. “Hey guys. I think we’ve fixed things our end. How are you two holding up?”</p><p class="Stories">“Oh, you know,” Matt panted, gripping onto the sides of the TARDIS console. “Just a gang of electrically-powered reanimated corpses trying to destroy the TARDIS, no biggie.”</p><p class="Stories">“Sounds like it’s going to plan, then. You know what to do.”</p><p class="Stories">Matt put the phone down and nodded towards Emma who flipped over the Post-It note to read the second part of the Doctor’s instructions.</p><p class="Stories">Outside, a dozen of the electric creatures clawed and grabbed at the TARDIS, attracted to it like moths to light. Suddenly, the blue box began to hum, dematerialising, and the creatures found themselves being transported along with it.</p><p class="Stories">Straight into the middle of the Biscayne Bay, just off the coast of Miami. Bolts thundered outwards from the bobbing TARDIS, disintegrating into sparks that skipped over the waves, as the creatures dissolved into nothingness.</p><p class="Stories">Inside the TARDIS, Matt and Emma checked the display and hugged one another. Outside, the residents of Miami slept on, unaware of their close call.</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The school bell echoed down the hallways of Jefferson High as Felicity grabbed a handful of books from her locker and closed the door.</p><p>“Hello again,” Matt said, leaning against the nearby lockers.</p><p>“You’re back,” Felicity smiled, shocked and strangely happy in equal measure. “I thought for sure you and your friend were some crazy vision I dreamed up.”</p><p>“I wish,” Matt lamented. “Can I walk you to class?”</p><p>Felicity nodded, and the two walked slowly down the corridor.</p><p>“You guys had something to do with it all, didn’t you?” Felicity stated, intently watching the ground.</p><p>“Felicity…about your dad…”</p><p>“He’s in China. Finalising a deal with some huge, multinational company. Or, at least, that’s the current line of response. Might change in a few months.”</p><p>Felicity exhaled and looked at Matt. “I know he’s dead. When he didn’t call that first day I knew something was up. In fact, I’ve known something weird has been going on with him since I…came back.”</p><p>“I know it’s no consolation, but all of the PowerLine stuff…I truly believe he had you in his heart through it all.”</p><p>“It really isn’t a consolation. But thank you.”</p><p>The two passed through a set of double doors into a small, empty courtyard. Felicity stopped walking, turning to Matt and adjusting her bag on her shoulder.</p><p>“All things considered, he was a pretty terrible dad. He was constantly working, and for the past year I’ve got nothing out of him except a single, daily phone call. But I still love him.”</p><p>Matt bit his tongue, desperately wanting to explain everything to Felicity, to tell her every last detail. But he knew some things would just be too much to bare.</p><p>“Sometimes a phone call can be more important than you think. It was his small way of showing you how much he cared.”</p><p>“I guess,” Felicity shrugged. “But, hey, orphan now right? Up there with Oliver Twist and…whiney old Annie.” Felicity let out a broken laugh and wiped away an escaping tear.</p><p>“There’s no way of sugar-coating it; the next little while is going to be really tough,” Matt said simply. “But I think I might know someone who could help you through it.”</p><p> </p><p>A few miles away, the Doctor and Emma sat on Peter’s couch as he brought a tray of drinks into the room. Despite all indications that the liquid was just boiled, the Doctor swiftly took her cup of tea and downed it in one.</p><p>“Love a good brew!” she enthused, showing no visible signs of pain.</p><p>“Doctor. Manners,” Emma protested under her breath.</p><p>“So, this is all over now, yes?” Peter asked, unable to sit further back in his chair.</p><p>The Doctor scrunched up her face. “I managed to look through Lance’s files and find the specific chip that made interdimensional contact possible, and ordered it be removed from the production line. So future PowerLine products should be safe. As for the ones already out in the wild…that’s all down to the will power of those in the bubble universe.”</p><p>“I trust Ava,” Peter said staunchly.</p><p>“Great! Then Miami is safe once again thanks to Peter and Ava Tanner. A love beyond death.”</p><p>The three sat in a companionable silence until the Doctor found herself getting bored.</p><p>“Right then. Best be off,” she said, abruptly standing up. “Peter, I’m trusting you to keep an eye out for Felicity. I know you’re worlds apart but you have one thing in common, at least.”</p><p>“Of course. She’s welcome here anytime.”</p><p> “Great. Oh, and maybe think about getting Caller ID.”</p><p>The Doctor bent down to hug Peter and then was swiftly out of the room. “Emma, I’ll be in the TARDIS. We need to pick up Matt from…I’ll remember when we get there.”</p><p>Emma watched the Doctor leave before giving an apologetic smile to Peter.</p><p>“Are you going too then?” Peter asked, strangely saddened.</p><p>“I suppose I must,” Emma said, placing her cup down and making to get up.</p><p>“I travelled in that ship of the Doctor’s, Emma,” Peter said, standing too. “It’s so…beyond belief. Impossible and magical.”</p><p>He averted his eyes, a shy child asking about something he shouldn’t know. “You’re her, aren’t you? The same woman. You’re Emma Hubbard, my grandmother.”</p><p>Emma let out an involuntary laugh, desperately trying to think how to spin this. “Uh, well, technically at the moment I’m--”</p><p>Peter threw his arms around her, drawing her in to a warm hug. Emma suddenly noticed that she was softly crying, and buried her face deeper into the shoulder of her grandson.</p><p>“You were the best grandmother a boy could ever have,” Peter whispered.</p><p>They let go of one another, wiping away their respective tears.</p><p>“Peter, you must understand, none of this has happened for me yet,” Emma said. “I don’t really know you properly. But…I do know that I’m desperately looking forward to it.”</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="Stories">A little while later, Emma sat quietly in the TARDIS console room, not thinking about much, other than the complexity of the universe. Matt came and sat next to her, fiddling with a Rubik’s cube he’d bought as a souvenir.</p><p class="Stories">“I don’t think I’ve ever once solved one of these,” he commented, randomly turning the layers. “But people think you’re smart if you have one lying around.”</p><p class="Stories">“The 20<sup>th</sup> century is quite peculiar,” Emma replied.</p><p class="Stories">“How you holding up?”</p><p class="Stories">Emma shrugged. “Fine. Happy, in fact. It’s just…that man exists because of me. At some point I have children, and grandchildren, and evidently great-grandchildren because a boy called Martin apparently lives in England somewhere. My life has been laid out for me. Again.</p><p class="Stories">“Travelling in the TARDIS was the first time in my life where I felt like I had some say over matters. But apparently the universe had other ideas.”</p><p class="Stories">“Em, who cares what happens in the future? You’re you, now, here, with us. Worry about tomorrow some other time.”</p><p class="Stories">“I suppose,” Emma said sighing heavily. “Anyway, I need to get some sleep. Will you excuse me?”</p><p class="Stories">Matt nodded, watching as Emma left. He rubbed his head, something stuck on the edge of his brain like a splinter in his finger. He hopped up and jogged across to the Doctor, who was staring suspiciously at a button on the TARDIS console.</p><p class="Stories">“Doctor, are you able to pull up records on people? Marriage certificates, that sort of thing? I want to check something out.”</p><p class="Stories">“Matt, the TARDIS isn’t some police database. But yeah, of course, what do you need?”</p><p class="Stories">“Can you pull up info on Peter’s first marriage?”</p><p class="Stories">“Uh, sure.”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor began typing at a keyboard, and a picture of a marriage certificate soon appeared on the scanner’s screen.</p><p class="Stories">“There you go. Peter Albert Tanner. Married…Dorothy Catherine Blake. Huh. Blake, like you. How funny,” the Doctor said, returning to her fiddling.</p><p class="Stories">Matt, meanwhile, stood frozen, his mind failing to comprehend the revelation. “Dorothy Blake…Grandma Dot…”</p><p class="Stories">“You alright?” the Doctor frowned.</p><p class="Stories">“Doctor, Dorothy Blake is my grandma. Which means Peter was my grandad; as soon as Emma mentioned him having a son called Martin that he’d left behind, I just had this feeling...my dad never talked about his father; all I knew was that he’d moved to America years ago and left Gran and Dad behind. But then that means…”</p><p class="Stories">Matt stared at the Doctor, waiting for the shared revelation, but her face remained impassive.</p><p class="Stories">“…What does it mean?” she asked genuinely.</p><p class="Stories">“That I’m related to Emma. She’s my…great-great-grandmother.”</p><p class="Stories">“Oh,” the Doctor replied, slightly underwhelmed by the reveal. “Is that it?”</p><p class="Stories">Matt scowled as the Doctor walked around the console. “How are you not freaking out? The two people you’re travelling with turn out somehow to be related.”</p><p class="Stories">“Eh, been there, done that,” the Doctor said, waving him off. “Humans are all distantly related to each other somehow. It’s a tiny bit disgusting.”</p><p class="Stories">“But this isn’t some second cousin twice removed. We’re directly related to each other. If she dies…” Matt trailed off.</p><p class="Stories">“Then we’d both be very sad at having lost our friend,” the Doctor finished. “Matt, you can’t freak out about this. She’s still Emma.”</p><p class="Stories">“Ok,” Matt allowed. “But please don’t tell her.”</p><p class="Stories">“Why not?”</p><p class="Stories">“You saw how freaked she was about Peter. Imagine travelling with your descendant. I…Doctor, I don’t want her to decide to leave, because she thinks she has to go…start the family line.”</p><p class="Stories">The Doctor scratched her head. “I don’t like lying.”</p><p class="Stories">“Then don’t. Just…avoid the truth. You’ll be fine unless she happens to randomly ask you if we’re related.”</p><p class="Stories">“Fine,” the Doctor sighed. “But your lie, your mess. I can only take so much family drama.”</p><p class="Stories">Matt nodded profusely and relaxed his shoulders. He would tell Emma eventually, of course he would. Maybe even tomorrow. Whenever that is.</p>
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